I found something completely off-putting when I watched CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory” for the first time the other day. That something was its laugh track. For those who are out-of-the-loop there, laugh tracks are fake laughter that sounds off in the background during the punch line of jokes on many popular sitcoms. “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men” use them. Sitcom heavy weights of yesteryear such as “Friends” and “Seinfeld” also used them. But laugh tracks are (and should be) a thing of the past. With the new era of comedy, there is a demand for a more mature, quieter background noise.

I understand the appeal of laugh tracks: People like laughing with other people. If you watch “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” with a group of friends, you’ll probably laugh harder than when you’re alone. But what is so unnerving about the laugh track is how insincere it sounds. After all, it is a television simulating human beings laughing. And, to make matter worse, it seems like the audience is laughing after every sentence in “Big Bang Theory,” even on the lines that aren’t funny at all.

The laugh track has a long history. Early talk shows and radio shows often used live audiences and incorporated their responses in the finished television product. But when live audiences just didn’t cut it, producers and directors added additional laughs to simulate hilarity. Think of it like steroids for sitcoms.

But if you take a look at the best sitcoms on television right now — “30 Rock,” “Community” and “Modern Family” among others — none of them have the choreographed chuckles that were once common in primetime television. The trend of ditching the laugh track isn’t a new concept either. “M.A.S.H.” neglected the fad. “The Office” could be credited for resurrecting the silent audience.

Laugh tracks patronize the shows themselves and the expected gratitude for each joke is a bar set too high. What if I don’t want to laugh when that nerdy guy on “Big Band Theory” says something smart and that hot girl across the hall doesn’t understand it? (Which, by the way, are 99 percent of the jokes on that show.) Audiences are intelligent enough to know when and when not to laugh.

Perhaps, more than anything, the silent audience is a mark of the future. Live audiences were primarily made up of families (Think: “America’s Funniest Home Videos”) But American audiences are bored with the platonic family sitting around the house making family-friendly jokes. It is no longer a reflection of our time period. We want our sitcoms to be more like “South Park,” not more like “Married With Children.” The new breed of sitcom deals with issues of the day, it’s older and challenges traditional values more than ever before. We want to see Cam and Mitchell kiss on “Modern Family,” we want to see the gang on “It’s Always Sunny” pick up girls at an anti-abortion rally, we even want to see David Duchovny bed a nun on “Californication.” And without a laugh track assaulting our eardrums, every joke is honest and received. To all television producers: let your audience laugh in peace.